KacheliTV

KacheliTV — the world's stories, read aloud.

Looking for a story to fall asleep to, to ride with on a long drive, or to share at bedtime? Start here.

We read the folk tales and classics of every culture on Earth — complete and unabridged, never excerpts — in fresh English translations, performed by our cast of voices. The fairy tales of Ireland and Japan. The legends of India and Nigeria. Jamaica, the Netherlands, the Cherokee, the Norse — and the Russia of Pushkin and Krylov. The stories your grandmother knew, and stories from shores you've never heard — every culture in the spotlight, no one missed.

New tales arrive every week. Pick a shelf, press play, and let the world's grandmothers talk you to sleep.

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From The Dog You Chose LLC, Gulfport, Florida. Public-domain sources, told with respect.

Find us:

YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/@KacheliTVFlorida

Telegram — https://t.me/kacheliTV

Website — https://dogyouchose.com

The Dog You Chose books — https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FYSTBLQ3

Our cast is a company of AI-generated voices, performing fresh in-house translations of public-domain works from every culture.

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S18 · E19
Friday · 32 min
Northern Tales — Part 19 of 22 (A Hunting Tale · Story about the Bad Merchant · Sea-Wanderers · The Big Pike)
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Four tales from the Kolyma country, told in the eighteen nineties and written down by Waldemar Bogoras. Three hunting companions share twenty sable skins unfairly, until the old man by the birch tree — who was once turned into a wolf, and then into a bunch of grass — teaches them what an unfair share costs, and the birch tree beside his house becomes a woman again. The brother who stayed at home catches the Bad Merchant with the merchant's own silver-inlaid lance and sets his workman free. A boatload of sea-wanderers sails three years among wonders — the fox people under the bank, the one-sided fishers, and the people who live on steam — and comes home to wives who had mourned them for dead. And on a Lena-country lake lives a pike so large that its cheek bones once sheltered a man, and the fisherman who met its two eyes on the water would never eat pike again. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Chapters: 01:39 A Hunting Tale 12:38 Story about the Bad Merchant 19:04 Sea-Wanderers 29:13 The Big Pike Source: Waldemar Bogoras, Tales of Yukaghir, Lamut, and Russianized Natives of Eastern Siberia (1918), recorded for the Jesup North Pacific Expedition — public domain. Narrators as printed: N.123 told by Nicholas Kusakoff, a Russian Creole, at Pokhotsk, summer 1896; N.124 told by Nicholas Kusakoff, a Russian creole, at Pokhotsk, summer 1895; N.126 told by Innocent Korkin, a Russianized Yukaghir man, at Pokhotsk, summer 1896; N.130 told by Nicholas Kusakoff, a Russian creole, at Pokhotsk, summer 1896. Fresh in-house English rendering, heard exactly as screened: the hunting tale and the Big Pike stand whole as printed; in the Bad Merchant, a single sentence of violation and the closing speculation about the prisoners' fate are not carried; in Sea-Wanderers, one island episode — a house with racks of dried human flesh — is left out whole, and the voyage sails on without it. After the first tale and its music you will hear this episode's short spoken break, placed there by design. Left out of this part, in book order and by name: N.125 Stepmother and Stepdaughter and N.127 The Tale of La'la (first telling) are excluded whole under the shelf's register — the first turns on habitual stepmother cruelty and ends in a girl torn in two; the second is a war raid and revenge killing from first to last. N.128, the second telling of La'la, stands down as its variant and is never narrated — with the first telling excluded, the La'la story leaves the shelf entirely. Also held by name for the owner's ruling, and untouched: N.116 The She-Monster, N.117 The Monster with Iron Teeth, N.118 The Girl from the Grave-Box, N.119 and N.120 Small-Pox (both versions), N.129 The Woman's Head, and N.142 Story of Hungry Children. This part tells Kolyma tales only, and the shelf claims no completeness that its register contradicts. Music: opening and closing theme, with short separators between the tales — Falling Leaves at the Ice Cliffs. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
- Transcript
S21 · E17
Friday · 44 min
The Gatiloke — Part 17 of 23 (Old Ta Phok and the Temple Boy · The Opium Smoker's Wife · The Man Who Kept a Bear · The Kraling-Kralong Bird and the Monkey · The Two Snakes · The Ki-Samut and the Pond Frog · Chao Tris and His Palace Wife)
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! The Gatiloke opens its eighth part. Old Ta Phok sits drinking tea with the abbot while the temple boys strip his garden bare. A wife, watching her opium-smoking husband ruin the house, talks him onto liquor — and finds the cure worse than the habit. A man sets his bear to guard his forest sleep, and wakes with a broken nose. A monkey, told by two small birds to build itself a shelter, answers by tearing their nest down. Two snakes try their shapes at a garden fence; a sea creature no bigger than a prawn lectures a pond frog on the size of the ocean; and Chao Tris hawks his fish in his palace wife's royal words — to his cost. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. The episode opens and closes with Lightning Crash as its theme, heard also briefly between the stories. Narrated by Felix. Chapters: 01:37 — Old Ta Phok and the Temple Boy 07:26 — The Woman Whose Husband Smoked Opium 15:11 — The Man Who Kept a Bear 18:40 — The Kraling-Kralong Bird and the Monkey 25:48 — The Many-Headed One-Tailed Snake and the One-Headed Many-Tailed Snake 29:27 — The Ki-Samut and the Pond Frog 34:12 — Chao Tris Who Took a Wife from the Palace From the Gatiloke by Suttantaprija Ind (1859–1924), Cambodia's treasury of Khmer folk tales, first published in parts in Phnom Penh in 1914–1921 — public domain, and told here in a fresh in-house English rendering made from the Khmer text, in the book's own order. Earlier holds stand as recorded in the collection's written register and in the descriptions of Parts 1–16: the question-chapter of the rascal who should be feared; Bhikkhu Sok, the Pnong teacher; the Singha-To who wanted the chief's daughter; the crocodile and the cart-driver; the hunter and the parrot; the fable of the old woman whom desire unmade; the abbot and his two students; the deer, the crow and the jackal; the jackal and the elephant; the lion and the frog; the rabbit and the tigress; and the goatherd boy — each held back under house rule until it is ruled on by name. One further tale of the book's sixth part — the tale of the village cat and the chap-puk bird — is likewise held back under house rule: its matter is a killing and an eating in the tale's open scene, twice over, and such a tale is not read until it is ruled on; it stands recorded in the register, in its place. Two tales at the close of the book's seventh part are likewise held back under house rule until they are ruled on by name: the lion who loved a cow, whose matter is a poisoning plotted and done, upon a tale of desire; and the monkey and the great hermit, whose matter is a sexual act done by guile on an unwilling other, as the tale's whole engine. Three tales of the book's eighth part are likewise held back under house rule until they are ruled on by name: the servant who killed the watch-crowing rooster, whose matter is a killing plotted in thought and done in secret, as the tale's whole engine; the couple who kept a ska, whose matter is a child dead by a snake's bite and a faithful creature struck down in anger, as the tale's climax; and the bear and the pongro tree, whose matter is a killing directed by one and done by another's axe, as the tale's close. The book's earlier item in this part, the tale of the man who knew how to play the gong, has no text in the collection's transcription as it stands; its collation is still owed, and it was passed in its place. One further tale of the book's eighth part — Chao Vaen, who went to buy spectacles to read broken letters — stands unfinished in the collection's transcription as it stands, its telling breaking off before its close; its collation is still owed, and it was passed in its place. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
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S15 · E19
Friday · 33 min
Folk Tales of India — Part 19 of 80 (The Prince and the Fakir · Why the Fish Laughed · The Demon with the Matted Hair) | KacheliTV World Classics
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Three tales from Joseph Jacobs' Indian Fairy Tales. In the first, a childless king lies down where four roads meet so that all must step over him, and a fakir's blessing gives him two sons — but the fakir returns in a year to claim the elder, and the prince, taken as his pupil, turns the fakir's own cauldron against him and frees everything the fakir held captive. In the second, a fish laughs aloud when a queen asks whether it is a he or a she; the king gives his vizier six months to explain the laugh, and the answer, won on the road by the vizier's son from a farmer's wise daughter, uncovers a man hidden among the palace maids. In the third, the Prince of the Five Weapons walks fearless into a demon's forest, and when sword, spear, bow, battle-axe and shield have all stuck fast in the Demon's matted hair, it is his fearlessness alone that wins him free. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Stories: 00:46 The Prince and the Fakir 10:53 Why the Fish Laughed 23:47 The Demon with the Matted Hair A note on what is not read here. Two tales that stand between these three in Jacobs' book are not read, under the shelf's standing rule that a tale-type is told once, in its strongest telling: The Farmer and the Money-Lender (Jacobs 21) is a variant of a tale this shelf tells from Flora Annie Steel's collection, and The Boy who had a Moon on his Forehead and a Star on his Chin (Jacobs 22) is a variant of a tale this shelf tells in full from Maive Stokes' collection. Both are named here and in the shelf's exclusion register, not silently dropped; the shelf as a whole makes no claim to completeness. A note on Why the Fish Laughed. The death sentence in this tale is a threat spoken near its opening — the vizier is given six months to explain the fish's laugh on pain of death — and it is never carried out: the tale ends with the faithful vizier saved. It is read here exactly as Jacobs printed it. From Indian Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs (1892), public domain; Project Gutenberg #7128 — the Panchatantra and Jataka tales Jacobs retold from the older collections, told here as Jacobs printed them. Narrated by Amos. Music: "Falling Leaves at the Ice Cliffs" — instrumental opening and closing theme, with short instrumental separators between the stories. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
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S67 · E3
Friday · 35 min
Folk Tales of the Solomon Islands — Part 3 (The Two Puepuei Walo Toro · Hute i Reuna Nga Päsi · U'o Saesae Madi, the Delectable Lizard)
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Three tales from Sa'a and Mala, in the south-east Solomon Islands, told exactly as Walter G. Ivens printed them in 1927. Two sisters go for wooden ear plugs, and a broken shell armlet and an elder sister's angry words spoken in a parable send the younger travelling to find Apai dili tola raka — by way of the Fisher for Worms, who shuts her in his inner chamber until an old woman knocks the wall down and takes her out. Hute i Reuna Nga Pasi, Born by the Side of a Bow, is swallowed by the great Groper and cuts his way out by firelight, defies his mother's warnings to take the Pig at Talahanea, and shoots the man-eating Eagle that had destroyed the people. And U'o Saesae Madi, the Delectable Lizard, the wonder-child born running after his father, lifts the canoe-house pillars, walks out of the great Clam, kills the man-eating Pig at Paasi, and rides a rainbow home from the sky. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Chapters: 02:01 The Two Puepuei Walo Toro 10:55 Hute i Reuna Nga Päsi, Born by the Side of a Bow 23:55 U'o Saesae Madi, the Delectable Lizard Passage notes, exactly as told: in The Two Puepuei Walo Toro, a pig is caught and killed for the journey food in one line; the Fisher for Worms shuts the girl in his inner chamber and the old woman knocks the wall down and takes her out — confinement ends in rescue, no harm. In Hute i Reuna Nga Päsi, the father's death is worked by a boiled charm in a single clause before the tale proper begins; the boy is swallowed by the Groper and cuts his way out by firelight, a survival escape; he shoots the man-eating Eagle that had destroyed the people in one passage, and takes the Pig for food. In U'o Saesae Madi, the men try three times to be rid of the wonder-child and fail without hurting him; he kills the man-eating Pig in one clause; at the very end a burnt charm shrivels him and he dies, in one clause. After the first tale and its music you will hear this episode's short spoken break, placed there by design. Left out of this part, by name: The War at Paasi (Sa'a) and Pelitataka and the Man-eater (Ulawa), which stand next after these tales in the book — excluded whole under this shelf's written register, and never narrated. This part tells three tales of Sa'a and Mala from Ivens's folklore chapter, and the shelf claims no completeness that its exclusions contradict. Source: Walter G. Ivens, Melanesians of the South-East Solomon Islands (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1927) — stories of Sa'a and Mala, public domain. Narrated by Morgana. Music: opening and closing theme, "Blazing Fire", with the same theme as a short separator between stories; no music under the narration. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
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S18 · E18
Friday · 31 min
Northern Tales — Part 18 of 22 (Tale about Chumo · Yukaghir Tale · Tale of a Shaman · Tale of a Shaman)
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Four tales from the Kolyma country, told in 1896 and written down by Waldemar Bogoras. Three sisters find a baby in a rock — Chumo, who grows to the roof when the house is empty and eats all their stores — and flee from him over a mountain of ivory and a mountain of flint to a river of fire. A pike with iron teeth gives a mother a daughter who grows by the hour, and her brother escapes her up an iron tree. A young man wins a horse from every companion by daring at midnight to cut the braid from a dead shaman's head. And a one-eyed Kolyma healer succeeds where seven shamans have failed, and sends his fee home through the air on a flying horse. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Chapters: 01:24 Tale about Chumo 13:08 Yukaghir Tale — The Pike-Girl 20:34 Tale of a Shaman — The Braid 23:43 Tale of a Shaman — The One-Eyed Healer Source: Waldemar Bogoras, Tales of Yukaghir, Lamut, and Russianized Natives of Eastern Siberia (1918), recorded for the Jesup North Pacific Expedition — public domain. Narrators as printed: N.114 told by Anne Vastriakoff, a Russianized Yukaghir woman, at Omolon, autumn 1896; N.115 told by Anne Korkin, a Russianized Yukaghir woman, at Sukharnoye, autumn 1896; N.121 told by John Parin, a Russianized Yakut, at Bystraia, summer 1896; N.122 told by Nicholas Kusakoff, a Russian creole, at Pokhotsk, summer 1896. Fresh in-house English rendering, heard exactly as screened: the first tale stands whole as printed, unfinished as its narrator left it; in the Pike-Girl, her parents' end stays offstage as printed, the reindeer pursuit is condensed, and the ermine's end is carried in a single plain clause; in the last tale, the healing is rendered without literal dismemberment, the cure whole. After the first tale and its music you will hear this episode's short spoken break, placed there by design. Left out of this part, in book order and by name: the five tales between the Pike-Girl and the shaman tales stand held by name for the owner's ruling, and untouched — N.116 The She-Monster, N.117 The Monster with Iron Teeth, N.118 The Girl from the Grave-Box, and N.119 and N.120 Small-Pox (both versions). Also held by name and untouched: N.129 The Woman's Head and N.142 Story of Hungry Children. No tale in this part's span was excluded whole. This part tells Kolyma tales only, and the shelf claims no completeness that its register contradicts. Music: opening and closing theme, with short separators between the tales — Cello Makam Pulse. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
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S21 · E16
Friday · 34 min
The Gatiloke — Part 16 of 23 (The Father and Son Who Took a Donkey to Sell · Chao Chak Smok · The Hamsa Goose and the Tortoise)
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! The Gatiloke continues its seventh part. A father and son, taking their fat young donkey to sell, change their way at every voice they meet — carrying it slung, the son riding, the father riding, both riding, both leading — and learn that with one donkey, pleasing the world cannot be done. Chao Chak Smok, weaving baskets at the top of a sugar palm, daydreams his way from one riel to fields and fortune, kicks at the slave girl of his dream, and falls — and the rescue that follows costs the four kind helpers who catch his fall their lives, while a poor woman's spilled pot of milk teaches the same lesson of desire-thought. And a tortoise, carried through the sky by its friends the hamsa geese, cannot keep its mouth shut over Varanasi. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. The episode opens and closes with Bandoneo Street Romance as its theme, heard also briefly between the stories. Narrated by Madame de Pamplemousse. Chapters: 01:12 — The Father and Son Who Took a Donkey to Sell 15:43 — Chao Chak Smok 28:49 — The Hamsa Goose and the Tortoise From the Gatiloke by Suttantaprija Ind (1859–1924), Cambodia's treasury of Khmer folk tales, first published in parts in Phnom Penh in 1914–1921 — public domain, and told here in a fresh in-house English rendering made from the Khmer text, in the book's own order. Earlier holds stand as recorded in the collection's written register and in the descriptions of Parts 1–15: the question-chapter of the rascal who should be feared; Bhikkhu Sok, the Pnong teacher; the Singha-To who wanted the chief's daughter; the crocodile and the cart-driver; the hunter and the parrot; the fable of the old woman whom desire unmade; the abbot and his two students; the deer, the crow and the jackal; the jackal and the elephant; the lion and the frog; the rabbit and the tigress; and the goatherd boy — each held back under house rule until it is ruled on by name. One further tale of the book's sixth part — the tale of the village cat and the chap-puk bird — is likewise held back under house rule: its matter is a killing and an eating in the tale's open scene, twice over, and such a tale is not read until it is ruled on; it stands recorded in the register, in its place. Two tales at the close of the book's seventh part are likewise held back under house rule until they are ruled on by name: the lion who loved a cow, whose matter is a poisoning plotted and done, upon a tale of desire; and the monkey and the great hermit, whose matter is a sexual act done by guile on an unwilling other, as the tale's whole engine. The book's earlier item in this part, the tale of the man who knew how to play the gong, has no text in the collection's transcription as it stands; its collation is still owed, and it was passed in its place. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
- Transcript
S15 · E18
Friday · 33 min
Folk Tales of India — Part 18 of 80 (A Lac of Rupees for a Piece of Advice · The Gold-Giving Serpent · A Lesson for Kings · Pride Goeth before a Fall · The Ass in the Lion's Skin) | KacheliTV World Classics
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Five tales from Joseph Jacobs' Indian Fairy Tales. In the first, a poor Brahman's wife carries three pieces of advice to market, asking a lac of rupees for them — and a banished prince who pays the price finds that each one saves his life. In the second, a farmer's daily bowl of milk for a serpent is repaid in gold, until his son's greed ends the friendship for ever. In the third, two kings of equal rank and opposite temper meet in a cart-track too narrow for both, and the question is whose chariot gives way. In the fourth, ten plundered cloth merchants, ordered to dance for the robbers who stripped them, sing a song the robbers do not understand. In the fifth, a hawker's ass, turned loose to graze in a lion's skin, is undone by his own voice. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Stories: 00:46 A Lac of Rupees for a Piece of Advice 15:50 The Gold-Giving Serpent 19:27 A Lesson for Kings 26:00 Pride Goeth before a Fall 30:39 The Ass in the Lion's Skin A note on what is not read here. Two tales that stand between these five in Jacobs' book are not read, under the shelf's standing rule that a tale-type is told once, in its strongest telling: The Son of Seven Queens (Jacobs 16) is a variant of a tale this shelf tells from Flora Annie Steel's collection, and Raja Rasalu (Jacobs 19) is Jacobs' own compressed digest of a legend this shelf tells in full from Steel. Both are named here and in the shelf's exclusion register, not silently dropped; the shelf as a whole makes no claim to completeness. From Indian Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs (1892), public domain; Project Gutenberg #7128 — the Panchatantra and Jataka tales Jacobs retold from the older collections, told here as Jacobs printed them. Narrated by Scratch. Music: "Imperial Violin Masquerade" — instrumental opening and closing theme, with short instrumental separators between the stories. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
- Transcript
S67 · E2
Friday · 34 min
Folk Tales of the Solomon Islands — Part 2 (The Feast of His Lordship the Eagle · The Hibiscus Flower and the Fire · The Rat and the Worm · Procuring a Wife · Marriage Negotiations · The Story of Takere Toro)
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Six tales from Sa'a and Ulawa, in the south-east Solomon Islands, told exactly as Walter G. Ivens printed them in 1927. His Lordship the Eagle gives a feast, and the Crested Hawk who plaited a red cane anclet on Lady Swamp Hen pays for his presumption. A hibiscus flower plays a trick on a fire stick at the pool. A worm silences a rat with wise words. A younger brother wins a wife from the Lady with watery eyes, while his elder brother, who would do none of her bidding, fares otherwise. A bride-viewing party sails from landing to landing in five hired canoes, finding fault at every beach, until the mate of Lord-fall-at-sea is found at home. And Takere Toro, disguised as an old woman, asks for water at every village in the land. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Chapters: 01:43 The Feast of His Lordship the Eagle 06:24 The Hibiscus Flower and the Fire 08:02 The Rat and the Worm 09:08 Procuring a Wife 14:20 Marriage Negotiations 29:11 The Story of Takere Toro Passage notes, exactly as told: in The Feast of His Lordship the Eagle, the Crested Hawk is caught, struck and tied for his presumption, then loosed by the Swallow unharmed — a brief chastisement inside an animal tale. In Procuring a Wife, the elder brother moves to throw the old woman into the sea and does not: her words stop him, and she stays aboard as his housekeeper — the throw is threatened only, never enacted. In Marriage Negotiations, at the close the feast pigs are killed and roasted in a single line. After the first tale and its music you will hear this episode's short spoken break, placed there by design. Left out of this part, by name: Bang the Paddle (Ulawa), which stands between The Rat and the Worm and Procuring a Wife in the book — excluded whole under this shelf's written register, and never narrated. This part tells six tales of Sa'a and Ulawa from Ivens's folklore chapter, and the shelf claims no completeness that its exclusions contradict. Source: Walter G. Ivens, Melanesians of the South-East Solomon Islands (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1927) — stories of Sa'a and Ulawa, public domain. Narrated by Mira. Music: opening and closing theme, "Bandoneo Street Romance", with the same theme as a short separator between stories; no music under the narration. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
- Transcript
S21 · E15
Friday · 45 min
The Gatiloke — Part 15 of 23 (The Donkey and the Dog with the Same Master · The Feet and Hands That Envied the Mouth · The Bitch and the Corpse · The Village Chief and His Servant Boy)
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! The Gatiloke closes its sixth part and opens its seventh. A donkey laden with his master's stores refuses the hungry dog a midday share of rice, for the stores are not his to give; when a wild dog chases him, the dog returns his own words and sits watching — until the master wakes, and judges the fault to be his own. The feet, the hands and the mouth, learning that all their labour feeds a stomach that does no work, go on strike together, and wither together, and learn why the idle centre must be fed. A bitch at a charnel ground talks her pup out of eating a corpse, part by part — eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hands, feet, and the mind itself — until the pup gives the wish up untouched. And a village chief, beaten twice by his servant boy's wit, receives tongues when he orders the best meat in the world, and tongues again when he orders the worst. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. The episode opens and closes with Bandoneo Street Romance as its theme, heard also briefly between the stories. Narrated by Violetta. Chapters: 01:17 — The Donkey and the Dog with the Same Master 14:09 — The Feet and Hands That Envied the Mouth 22:15 — The Bitch and the Corpse 31:08 — The Village Chief and His Servant Boy From the Gatiloke by Suttantaprija Ind (1859–1924), Cambodia's treasury of Khmer folk tales, first published in parts in Phnom Penh in 1914–1921 — public domain, and told here in a fresh in-house English rendering made from the Khmer text, in the book's own order. Earlier holds stand as recorded in the collection's written register and in the descriptions of Parts 1–14: the question-chapter of the rascal who should be feared; Bhikkhu Sok, the Pnong teacher; the Singha-To who wanted the chief's daughter; the crocodile and the cart-driver; the hunter and the parrot; the fable of the old woman whom desire unmade; the abbot and his two students; the deer, the crow and the jackal; the jackal and the elephant; the lion and the frog; the rabbit and the tigress; and the goatherd boy — each held back under house rule until it is ruled on by name. One further tale of the book's sixth part — the tale of the village cat and the chap-puk bird — is likewise held back under house rule: its matter is a killing and an eating in the tale's open scene, twice over, and such a tale is not read until it is ruled on; it stands recorded in the register, in its place. The book's next item after this part's tales, the tale of the man who knew how to play the gong, has no text in the collection's transcription as it stands; its collation is still owed, and Part Sixteen opens at the tale after it. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
- Transcript
S18 · E17
Friday · 33 min
Northern Tales — Part 17 of 22 (Yukaghir Tale · A Bear Tale · Grass-Blade Girl · Yukaghir Tale)
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Four tales from the Kolyma country, told at Pokhotsk in 1895 and 1896 and written down by Waldemar Bogoras. An old man feigns his death so that he can eat a fat elk all alone, and his wife teaches him better with the help of a ptarmigan. A bear carries off a girl kept hidden for her beauty, and her brother-in-law, a great shaman, fights for her in bear's shape with a bell on his ear — and the boy she bears is Bear-Ear, the strong hunter. Grass-Blade Girl, born from a blade of grass and rich in pearls and sables, is stolen by the witch Yaghishna, loses everything, and is born again from a new green blade. And Kutika Mutika, whose name no suitor could guess, flies from the monster who guessed it — and meets him again at her own fireside, with three children in the house. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Chapters: 01:33 Yukaghir Tale — The Death That Was Only Feigned 06:21 A Bear Tale 13:55 Grass-Blade Girl 23:04 Yukaghir Tale — Kutika Mutika Source: Waldemar Bogoras, Tales of Yukaghir, Lamut, and Russianized Natives of Eastern Siberia (1918), recorded for the Jesup North Pacific Expedition — public domain. Narrators as printed: N.109 and N.111 told by Katherine Rumiantzev, a Russianized Yukaghir woman, at Pokhotsk, summer 1896; N.110 told by Nicholas Kusakoff, a Russian creole, at Pokhotsk, summer 1896; N.113 told by Nicholas Kusakoff, a Russian creole, at Pokhotsk, summer 1895. Fresh in-house English rendering, heard exactly as screened: in the first tale, the two scoldings stand where blows stood, the ptarmigan frightens without drawing blood, and the poker is shaken, not swung; in the bear tale, one forced sentence is not heard, and the bear's anger is heard in a single plain clause; in Grass-Blade Girl, the witch's cellar, the pursuit, and the witch's end are condensed to plain clauses, with the girl's rebirth whole; in the last tale, the monster's seizing of the two little ones and his end at the sea are condensed the same way. After the first tale and its music you will hear this episode's short spoken break, placed there by design. Left out of this part, in book order and by name: N.108 Raven Tale and N.112 The Alder-Block — excluded whole under this shelf's written register, and never narrated. Held by name for the owner's ruling, and untouched: N.116 The She-Monster, N.117 The Monster with Iron Teeth, N.118 The Girl from the Grave-Box, N.119 and N.120 Small-Pox (both versions), N.129 The Woman's Head, and N.142 Story of Hungry Children. This part tells Kolyma tales only, and the shelf claims no completeness that its exclusions contradict. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
- Transcript
S8 · E61
Friday · 31 min
The Thousand and One Nights — Noureddin Ali of Cairo and His Son Bedreddin Hassan — Part Three of Five
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! The bride has been displayed in her seven dresses, and the stranger from Bassora sits in the alcove where the hunchbacked groom should be — while the groom himself is kept waiting in the dark by a visitor he will not forget: an Ifrit who grows from mouse to cat to dog to buffalo to bar him from the bridal chamber. Bedreddin takes his bride in honour, and falls asleep in her arms; but the jinn who carried him to Cairo must carry him home before dawn, and the dawn overtakes them on the way. He wakes at the gate of Damascus in nothing but his shirt, and is taken in by a cook with a past. In Cairo, a turban, a purse of a thousand dinars and a paper sewn into a cap tell the Vizier who his daughter's husband truly was — and a son is born who will ask, one day, who his father is. Part Three of Five. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. A note on what is not read here. In Payne's book this tale is told by the Vizier Jaafer inside "The Three Apples". That frame tale is not read in this programme: a husband's murder of his wife is its plot engine, and it is excluded whole under this shelf's rule that violent tales are excluded, never softened. No completeness is claimed for that stretch of the book. Within Part Three itself, one brief passage of the wedding night — the bride's unveiling and what followed, in the source's explicit terms — has been passage-cut at scripting and bridged in a few plain words, on this shelf's standing practice for such passages; the marriage, and that the bride conceived a son, are told as the tale tells them, and nothing else is cut. Chapters: 00:52 Introduction 01:54 Noureddin Ali of Cairo and His Son Bedreddin Hassan — Part Three Fresh in-house rendering from John Payne's translation, The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night (1882–84). Parts Four and Five are still to come, and will complete the tale. Narrated by Lulu. Music: "Imperial Violin Masquerade" — opening and closing theme, with a short excerpt at the tale's mid-point break. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
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S15 · E17
Friday · 32 min
Folk Tales of India — Part 17 of 80 (Harisarman · The Charmed Ring · The Talkative Tortoise) | KacheliTV World Classics
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Three tales from Joseph Jacobs' Indian Fairy Tales. In the first, Harisarman, a poor Brahman tired of being forgotten at his patron's table, pretends to magical knowledge — and luck, three times over, makes the pretence good. In the second, a merchant's son spends his whole fortune rescuing a dog, a cat and a snake, and is repaid with a charmed ring that summons a house and a princess — until an ogress steals the ring away, and the faithful animals must win it back. In the third, a talkative tortoise, carried through the sky by two wild ducks, cannot hold his tongue — and the future Buddha, adviser to a king who talks too much, draws the moral. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Stories: 00:46 Harisarman 09:53 The Charmed Ring 27:33 The Talkative Tortoise A note on what is not read here. This part was originally mapped to a single tale, The Soothsayer's Son (Jacobs 10), which is excluded whole under the house law — violence is that tale's substance — and is named here, not silently dropped; the part therefore tells the next three tales in Jacobs' order, and the shelf renumbers from this part onward (eighty parts in all). The shelf as a whole makes no claim to completeness: the tales excluded whole and the items held for the owner's ruling by name are all listed in the shelf's exclusion register. From Indian Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs (1892), public domain; Project Gutenberg #7128 — the Panchatantra and Jataka tales Jacobs retold from the older collections, told here as Jacobs printed them. Narrated by Orson. Music: "Bandoneo Street Romance" — instrumental opening and closing theme, with short instrumental separators between the stories. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
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S172 · E10
Friday · 4 min
Tales for Sleep: The Queen of the Surf
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Tales for Sleep: The Queen of the Surf Tonight's tale is "Mamala the Surf-Rider," from William D. Westervelt's Legends of Old Honolulu, collected in Hawaii. Settle in, and listen. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Mamala was the surf-riding queen of Kou, the village now called Honolulu. The surf she rode was the surf of Ka-lakae, "the rough," long, curling, straight waves that no one dared to ride without first learning their ways. She rode easily, alone, out beyond the breakers, with the breeze feathering the tabu trees — until the young chief Kahaavale saw her on the shore at night, and came again and again. In the racing dug-outs — the double canoes whose bows rise to keep them from plunging under the waves — the chief of a neighbouring village put his little sister on the bow of the fastest canoe, stroke by stroke, race by race, until the two champions met on the water. Listen now, and rest. The tale: 00:15 — Mamala the Surf-Rider Source: William D. Westervelt (1861–1942), Legends of Old Honolulu (Boston: Geo. H. Ellis Co., 1916), ch. VII, Project Gutenberg #66547, pp. 135–140 (575 words) — public domain; performed in Westervelt's printed English. Gate record: catalogue/hawaiiWestervelt-canon.md. No completeness claim is made for Westervelt's collection. Narrated by Lulu A dry-voice telling — no music, by the Sleep Season's design. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
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S143 · E2
Friday · 25 min
Folk Tales of Lesotho — Part 2: The Bird That Makes Milk · Ntoatsana | KacheliTV World Classics
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Folk Tales of Lesotho — Part 2 (The Bird That Makes Milk · Ntoatsana) Part two of the Lesotho shelf. Two more folk tales of the Basuto people, from Édouard Jacottet's Contes populaires des Bassoutos (Paris, 1895), collected by Jacottet himself in Basutoland — modern Lesotho — where he lived nearly ten years and spoke the language, and heard here in a fresh in-house English translation made from Jacottet's French. In The Bird That Makes Milk, a little bird undoes Mamasilo's hoeing every evening with its song, until she catches it and its frightened refrain fills every vessel in the village with curdled milk; and when the children who borrowed it lose it on the hillside, the immense bird Tlatlasollé shelters them all under its wings from a tree-breaking hailstorm, raises them in its nest, and in time flies every one of them home to its own parents. In Ntoatsana, a whirlwind carries the herd-girl to the Ma-Tébélé, the fabulous people with one leg, one arm, one eye and one ear; years later she silences the magic horns that guard her hut and escapes by night with her twin daughters, while a marvellous singing, dancing sheep stops her one-legged pursuers in wonder, again and again, until they give up and go home. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. The Bird That Makes Milk — a field that will not stay hoed, a bird that makes curdled milk, lost children sheltered under great wings, and every child returned home. Ntoatsana — a whirlwind, the one-legged Ma-Tébélé, magic horns silenced with hot water and stones, and a singing sheep that dances a whole pursuit to a standstill. The tales: 0:46 The Bird That Makes Milk 16:09 Ntoatsana From Contes populaires des Bassoutos by Édouard Jacottet (1858–1920), published in Paris in 1895 and in the public domain; lawful copy: Internet Archive (contespopulaires00jaco). Tales X and XX, complete and in book order, in a fresh in-house English translation from the French; Jacottet's scholarly footnotes are apparatus and are not narrated. Eleven of the book's twenty-three tales are excluded from this shelf by name after full readings: Le petit lièvre · Le chacal, la colombe et la panthère · Masilo et Masilonyané · Masilo et Thakané · Tsélané · Mosélantja · Nyopakatala · Modisa-oa-Bipodi · Koumongoé · Monyohé · Mosimodi et Mosimotsané. No claim of completeness for the book is made. Narrated by Morgana. Music: Bandoneo Street Romance, heard as the opening and closing theme and briefly between the stories; no music under the narration. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
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S172 · E9
Friday · 9 min
Tales for Sleep: A Guest from the Hidden People
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Tales for Sleep: A Guest from the Hidden People Tonight's tale is "Una, the Elfwoman," from Icelandic Legends, collected by Jón Árnason and translated by George E. J. Powell and Eiríkur Magnússon. Settle in, and listen. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. On the Hlid farmstead in Iceland, a labourer named Una is taken one night to a hidden farm in the middle of a lake, where she spends three days among a people few ever see — quietly laying out a silver tray for meals that are never quite eaten — and when her master finds her again and asks why she left, she answers, "I did not, but was forced." She will not talk about it. And that is the measure of this gentle tale: no one is harmed, nothing is threatened, and the hidden people ask almost nothing of anyone; the one small liberty of the telling is Una's short-term disappearance, reported and resolved. Listen now, and rest. The tale: 00:15 — Una, the Elfwoman Source: Jón Árnason (1819–1888), collector; George E. J. Powell (1842–1882) & Eiríkur Magnússon (1833–1913), translators, Icelandic Legends, Collected by Jón Árnason, vol. I (London: Richard Bentley, 1864), pp. 68 ff. (Books VIII–XIII on Google Books; scan hunt logged in catalogue/iceland-canon.md) — public domain; performed in the translators' printed English. Gate record: catalogue/iceland-canon.md. Narrated by Magnolia A dry-voice telling — no music, by the Sleep Season's design. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
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S172 · E6
Friday · 5 min
Tales for Sleep: The Maiden in the Grass
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Tales for Sleep: The Maiden in the Grass Tonight's tale is "Doll i' the Grass," from Popular Tales from the Norse by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe, in George Webbe Dasent's classic English translation. Settle in, and listen. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. A king of the country has twelve sons, and when they are grown he sends them out into the world to seek their wives. They set off on horseback, carrying his blessing with them — and they come to a king who has twelve daughters, and all stay and marry, all but Boots, the youngest. Boots rides on alone in search of a wife no bigger than a finger, and he finds her in the grass: the tiniest little maiden, drawn in splendour, who stands and invites him home. He drinks the sparkling wine from the tiny golden goblet she offers, kisses the tiny white hand she holds out, and they are married that very day, in as fine a wedding as any king's. A soft evening's listening — the only hardship in it is a long journey home. The tale: 00:14 — Doll i' the Grass Source: Peter Christen Asbjørnsen (1812–1885) & Jørgen Moe (1813–1882), Popular Tales from the Norse, trans. George Webbe Dasent (1817–1896) (Edinburgh: Edmonston & Douglas, 1859), Project Gutenberg #1532, pp. 213–218 — public domain; performed in Dasent's printed English. Gate record: catalogue/norway-canon.md. The paired tale "Little Annie the Goose-Girl" did not pass the season's screen and is not read. No completeness claim is made for the collection. Narrated by Mira A dry-voice telling — no music, by the Sleep Season's design. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
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S172 · E5
Friday · 15 min
Tales for Sleep: Changed by the River
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Tales for Sleep: Changed by the River Tonight, four Korean tales from James S. Gale's Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts and Fairies (1913), his translation of Im Bang and Yi Ryuk: "The Old Man Who Became a Fish," "The Wild-Cat Woman," "The Soldier of Kang-Wha," and "The Geomancer." Settle in, and listen. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. An old man of nearly a hundred, burning with fever, asks to be carried to the river that runs before his house — and slips into the water and is changed, becoming a great flatfish that swims away into the deep sea. A duplicate wife, held fast until the cocks crew, falls and changes into a wild cat, and escapes through the door unharmed. A soldier of Kang-wha, alone in midwinter, calls butterflies out of scraps of silk to cheer his wife — and his village alone is spared when the island falls. And a geomancer, fed a bowl of white gruel by a mourner who has not yet found a burial site, repays the kindness with a perfect site in the hills, whose luck a rival later misreads. One honest note on the telling: the wild cat escapes unharmed, and the geomancer's bereavement is background only — a mourner, a funeral not yet arranged, and a grave site found. The tales: 00:19 — The Old Man Who Became a Fish 04:06 — The Wild-Cat Woman 07:57 — The Soldier of Kang-Wha 10:18 — The Geomancer Source: James S. Gale (1863–1937), translator, Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts and Fairies, from Im Bang and Yi Ryuk (J. M. Dent & Sons / E. P. Dutton, 1913), Project Gutenberg #51002 — public domain; Gale's English performed as printed. Gate record: catalogue/korea-canon.md; all four tales passed on full read and were benched for a later part. Narrated by Orson · Tales for Sleep A dry-voice telling — no music, by the Sleep Season's design. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
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S172 · E2
Friday · 14 min
Tales for Sleep: What the Birds Taught Him
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Tales for Sleep: What the Birds Taught Him Tonight's tale is "The Boy Who Learned the Songs of Birds," a Seneca tale of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy), collected by Jeremiah Curtin and published in his Seneca Indian Myths (E. P. Dutton, 1923). Settle in, and listen. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Two brothers live alone in the woods, and the younger — a little fellow who does the thinking for both — learns the songs of the birds, dancing for the feathers in his head-dress until, wrapped in the turkey skin his brother made him, he slowly becomes Turkey himself: wise, watchful, and able to warn his brother of the woman full of witchcraft who comes to lead him west. Two turkeys are killed at the boy's request along the way — one for the two feathers of his head-dress, one for the skin that becomes his pouch — each in a single summarised line, for craft and subsistence, never as a scene. The witch-women's intent to kill the elder brother is reported, never enacted; Turkey follows, and with Moose's help the brother is carried home unharmed, and the two live together ever after, still learning the songs of birds — for from birds, the tale says, came all the songs and dances. The tale: 00:11 — The Boy Who Learned the Songs of Birds Source: Jeremiah Curtin (1835–1906), Seneca Indian Myths (New York: E. P. Dutton, ©1923), pp. 179–184. Curtin's public-domain English read as printed; the tale was screened in full and passed at the shelf's gate — record: catalogue/iroquois-canon.md. Billed as a Seneca tale of the Haudenosaunee, collected by Jeremiah Curtin; no completeness claim is made for Curtin's collection. Narrated by Magnolia A dry-voice telling — no music, by the Sleep Season's design. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
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S172 · E1
Friday · 9 min
Tales for Sleep: The Stone That Told the Truth
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Tales for Sleep: The Stone That Told the Truth Tonight's tale is "Little May," from Evald Tang Kristensen's Æventyr fra Jylland, the Jutland tale collection he gathered from the tellers of Denmark — a quiet story of a little shepherdess, a prince who goes courting four times, and the stone inside his door that tells everything anyone has done. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Mette tends her sheep by the roadside and answers the Prince of England the same way every time he passes: she draws rag over rag now, but one day she will draw gold over gold. Three foreign princesses come to visit the prince, and each is turned away when the truth-telling stone speaks against her. The fourth, fearing the same road, exchanges clothes with Mette and sends the shepherdess in her place — and the stone speaks for Mette. The prince plaits a gold ring into her hair so that he will know her again, and it is by that ring, glinting in a shepherdess's hair beside the road, that the tale quietly comes home. The tale: 00:13 — Little May Source: Evald Tang Kristensen (1843–1922), "Bitte Mette," Æventyr fra Jylland (Jyske Folkeminder V, no. 7, pp. 57–61). Fresh in-house translation from the Danish as printed; no published translation used or consulted. Gate record: catalogue/denmark-canon.md; full Danish read at the Denmark Part 6 gate (episodes/episode-486-denmark-6/script-notes.txt), verdicted content-clean. Narrated by Mira A dry-voice telling — no music, by the Sleep Season's design.
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S98 · E2
Friday · 21 min
Rumanian Bird and Beast Stories — Part 2: The Little Worm, St. Peter and the Cuckoo, The Wolf's Eyes, The Beetle Nun, The Hornet, The Woodpecker, and The Oak | Romanian Folk Tales in English
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Rumanian Bird and Beast Stories — Part 2: The Little Worm, St. Peter and the Cuckoo, The Wolf's Eyes, The Beetle Nun, The Hornet, The Woodpecker, and The Oak | Romanian Folk Tales in English Part Two of Moses Gaster's Rumanian Bird and Beast Stories (1915), rendered into English by Gaster himself: seven more "why" tales of the Rumanian villages — why the little worm glows, how the thief Cuckoo came to call his own name, why the wolf's eyes glow in the dark, why the beetle is called the Nun, why the hornet lives in smoky places, how an inquisitive old woman became the woodpecker, and why the oak should not boast. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. - Why the Little Worm Glows — an angel who looked too far into a shepherdess's eyes falls to earth as a shower of sparks, and the glow-worms carry them still. - St. Peter and the Cuckoo — the horse-thief Cuckoo is cursed into the bird that can speak nothing but its own name, and the glow-worms are blessed as guides of the wanderers. - Why the Wolf's Eyes Glow — the devil fashions the wolf, God gives it life, and the devil's own hairs become the bristles and the sparks in the wolf's eyes. - Why the Beetle Is Called the Nun — the devil's ill-tempered daughter, made a nun in the hope she would mend, is changed into the insect the sisters named Nun. - Why the Hornet Lives in Smoky Places — the hornet brings God a piece of cardboard, and is cursed to cardboard work, a chimney home, and a nest everyone breaks. - The Woodpecker and the Inquisitive Old Woman — she opens the sack of insects she was warned not to touch, and must pick them up again as a bird, beak first, to this very day. - Why the Oak Should Not Boast — the sparrow, insulted by a sapling, returns after nine hundred years to roll in the dust of the proud oak. The tales: 00:45 — Why the Little Worm Glows 04:39 — St. Peter and the Cuckoo 09:02 — Why the Wolf's Eyes Glow 11:09 — Why the Beetle Is Called the Nun 12:31 — Why the Hornet Lives in Smoky Places 14:33 — The Woodpecker and the Inquisitive Old Woman 17:41 — Why the Oak Should Not Boast Source: Moses Gaster (1856–1939), Rumanian Bird and Beast Stories (London: Sidgwick & Jackson for the Folk-Lore Society, 1915), Gaster's own English rendering; lawful copy Project Gutenberg eBook #43059. Every piece in the collection was read and screened for this shelf: of its 126 numbered and lettered pieces, 61 were excluded by name under the no-violence law and 56 benched by name with reasons; 5 were told in Part 1, the 7 in this part follow in book order, and 17 clean tales remain for later parts. No completeness claim is made for this collection. Gaster's scholarly notes after each tale are not read. Narrated by Amos. Opening and closing theme: Bandoneo Street Romance — with a short instrumental separator between stories, and no music under the narration. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
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